Twenty-two people get their heads shaved Saturday at St. Baldrick's event

By Shelley Widhalm

Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
03/08/2014 03:48:41 PM MST

Nicole Kreiling has her head shaved by Shear NV stylist Marcia Hopper during the St. Baldrick's event on Saturday, March 8, 2014 at the Thompson School District administration building to raise money for cancer research.

Thompson School District employee Sheila Osebold and her daughter-in-law, Jocelyne Barnes, felt the freedom Saturday when they got their heads shaved.

Osebold, who works in the technology department for Thompson School District, wanted to honor her mother, Carolyn Weese, who died in January of breast cancer, and convinced Barnes to join her at the Team Thompson Community St. Baldrick's Event that raises funds for childhood cancer research.

Barnes wanted to show support for Weese and for her niece, Riley Whan, who died of cancer two days before her first birthday.

"It's never something I thought I'd do," Barnes said, adding that she hasn't had short hair either. "Oh my gosh. It almost feels like a freedom. Is it really gone?"

Cooper Barnes, 5, right, talks to Sheila Osebold as she has her head shaved by Shear NV stylist Shauna Payne during the St. Baldrick's event on Saturday, March 8, 2014 at the Thompson School District administration building to raise money for cancer research.

Osebold raised the most of the 22 people who volunteered to get their hair shorn, collecting $1,762, closely followed by Barnes' $1,590. The shavees raised $10,073 by the conclusion of the three-hour event, with shaving done by Shear NV Salon stylists.

Last year, the event generated $16,160, and in 2012, $10,500.

"When a child has cancer, it has a huge impact on the family and the community," said Mike Jones, assistant superintendent of human resources and school support for the district and the emcee of the event. "When we can help out like this, it's an awesome thing to do."

Eighteen-year-old Nick Spickard had never gone bald before until his friends, Alex Eichler and Tyler Pechin, asked him to join in the fund-raiser, which they participated in the year before.

"It's just a good thing to do," said Spickard, a 12th-grader at Berthoud High School, about raising $550.

Greeley resident Kate Parker came to the event to get her head shaved and raise money in an education setting, because she is studying to be a special education teacher.

Just after she got her head shaved, Parker kept trying to move her bangs out of her face, she said.

"It's whatever," Parker said. "It's just hair. It grows back."

Nicole Kreiling, an intensive learning center teacher at Ponderosa Elementary School, had hair long enough to donate, saying as it got cut off, "This is really happening? ... It'll be a shock to my students."

Afterwards, Kreiling, who raised $650, said she was doing the right thing.

"You just do what you can," she said. "It's just hair."

Doug Jepson of Fort Collins told the attendees of the event about how his son, Jake, an eighth-grader at Lucile Erwin Middle School, was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma in January 2013 and underwent chemotherapy and surgery to remove a tumor on his leg.

"As we got done with Jake's chemo, it did show us what we are made of," Jepson said. "Cancer, especially childhood cancer, is not a once-in-awhile thing, it's an all-the-time thing."